Those who had the chief place and power in Israel the Lord had convicted, under pretense of jealousy for law, of utter hypocrisy and hatred of grace even to the seed of Abraham. Under the parables of the mustard seed and the leaven, He had shown what would be the outward form of the kingdom during His rejection. But this does not hinder His going on for the present with His labor of love. “He went through the cities and villages, teaching, and journeying toward Jerusalem.” He knew right well what was to befall Him there, as indeed is expressly stated at the end of this chapter. One now says to Him, “Lord, are there few that be saved?” Are those that shall be saved (the remnant and those destined to salvation) few? The Lord does not gratify such curiosity, but at once speaks to the conscience of him who inquired. Take care that you stand right with God. “Strive to enter into the strait gate, for many, I say unto you, shall seek to enter in and shall not be able.” It is not, as is sometimes thought, so much a question between “seeking” and “striving.” This would throw the stress upon man, and the difference of his state; though it is true that conversion means a mighty change and that where the Spirit of God works in grace, there must needs be a real earnestness of purpose given. But the true point is that people must “strive to enter in through the strait gate.” The strait gate means conversion to God through faith and repentance. It is a person who is not content with being an Israelite, but feels the need of being born again and for it looks to God who uses the Lord Jesus as the way. This is to “strive to enter in the strait gate.” “There are many,” He says,” who will endeavor to enter in and shall not be able.” This does not mean that they would seek to enter in by the strait gate; for, if they did so, it would be all right. But they seek to get the blessing of the kingdom without being born of God; they would like to have all the privileges promised to Israel without being born of water and the Spirit. This is impossible. “Many will seek to enter in, and shall not be able.” For if they enter, it must be through the strait gate of being born anew.
“When once the master of the house is risen up, and hath shut to the door, and ye begin to stand without and to knock at the door, saying, Lord, Lord, open unto us, and he shall answer and say unto you, I know you not whence ye are.” The Lord takes this position outside them through His rejection; they rejected Him and He has no alternative but for the time to reject them, unless God would be a party to the dishonor of His own Son. But whatever be His grace (and He will be most gracious), God shows His complacency in Christ and His resentment at those who, though taking the highest ground of their own merits, proved their unrighteousness, and unbelief, and rebellion against God when He displayed Himself in love and goodness in the Lord Jesus.
“When once the master of the house is risen up, and has shut to the door” —it would be quite unavailing for the Jews to plead that Jesus had come into their midst, that the Messiah had been in their streets, “that they had eaten and drunk in his presence,” and He had taught in their streets. This was what most evidenced their guilt. He had been there, and they would not have Him. He had taught in their streets, but they had despised and rejected Him, even more than the Gentiles. They had insisted upon His crucifixion when the most hard-hearted of Gentile governors had wished His acquittal.
It is always so. Religious privilege, when misused and abandoned, leaves those who had it worse than before, worse than those who have never had it. Messiah therefore shall say to them, “I tell you, I know not whence ye are; depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity.” God could not have mere forms: there must be what suits His nature. This is invariably proved true, when the light of God shines. The gospel does not mean that God now sanctions what is contrary to Himself. Even in remitting sin through faith He meets what is opposed to Himself, but produces what is according to Himself by His own grace. But He always holds to His own principle, that it is those who “by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory, and honor, and incorruptibility,” that have eternal life, and none others. Those “who by patient continuance in well doing” please Him are to be with Him, and none but they. How this patient continuance in well doing is produced is another matter, and how souls are awakened to seek after it. Certainly it is not from themselves, but from God. Conversion essentially consists in distrust of self and turning to God. This the Jews had not, and, in spite of all their high pretensions to religion, they were only workers of iniquity. “There” —not among the heathen— “shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when ye shall see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out.” But this is not all—the picture would not be complete if they did not see others brought in too. It is not only the Jews shut out from their fathers, when the time of glory comes; but others “shall come from the east, and from the west, and from the north, and from the south” —that is, the widest ingathering of the Gentiles— “and shall sit down in the kingdom of God.” Thus it was manifest that “there are last which shall be first.” Such were the Gentiles; they were called by grace to be first. And “there are first which shall be last.” Such were the Jews. They had held the earliest and chief place in the calling of God; but they renounced it for self-righteousness and rejected their Messiah accordingly. The Gentiles would now hear, when the natural children, we may say, of the kingdom shall be thrust out. Grace would conquer where flesh and law had utterly failed, reaping woe to themselves as much as dishonoring God.